The Lake Landing Players
by theskyinourhearts
Summary: In which the librarian knights are members of an amateur dramatics group and must do battle with poor writing, budget problems and their bitter rivals, the Undertown Night Players


"Look what you've done now."

Smoke curled lazily upwards as a cigarette was crushed under a booted heel. A tall, slender youth pushed back his dark hair with sigh.

"The boss aint gonna take it no more. You try any more tricks like this, and the fishes are gonna have a new buddy for slumber parties."

Rolling back the sleeves of a studded leather jacket, the youth used a bare forearm to grab the shoulder of his partner in conversation with an iron fist. He pulled him close and whispered through gritted teeth, "You wanna reminder of our contract?"

He gave a vicious shove and the other boy fell to the floor with a small cry. "N-no! I don't! I can do it, I swear, I can…" His breath was cut off as a boot landed on his chest. Hot, harsh lights glared down at him.

The taller boy leaned in close, angrily narrowed eyes concealed behind sunglasses. "You can what?"

"I can…I can…" A tortured pause. "I can…oh bugger it." The boy pushed the boot off his chest and scrabbled for a thick wad of paper.

"Mr. Filatine!" An anguished cry came from the darkness beyond the lights followed by a dull thud. "Where do scripts belong, Mr. Filatine? Off. The. Stage. Think of the stage as Chernobyl, and your script as a power plant worker."

"I don't think that's really appropriate, Mr. Lodd," protested Xanth's companion.

"Well, neither is forgetting your lines, Mr. Barkwater, but everybody seems to be just fine with that one," retorted Fenbrus Lodd, amateur dramatics director, widely rumoured to have a fragment of eternally disappointed Quentin Tarantino trapped within his soul.

"Sorry!" Xanth called out, pushing the boot off his chest and sitting up slowly. Dust had gathered in his hair like an early onset of old age. He raised his hand to shake it out, only to gasp out an expletive.

His fall had dislodged the spikes emblazoning the collar of his jacket and the sharpened points had grazed his knuckles. He quickly sucked at the bright red drops welling up between his fingers.

It was now Fenbrus' turn to interrupt again. Dispensing with any attempt at politeness, he bellowed, "Mr. Vulpoon!"

A deep voice bellowed back from behind a half-finished plywood outline of a skyscraper, "Yeah, what?"

"Come out here when I'm talking to you!"

A ponytail swung into view as Damien 'Deadbolt to his mates' Vulpoon poked his head around the scenery. "What's the problem, captain?"

Fenbrus wagged a warning finger. "Don't call me that. And what was the very important thing I told you when I was giving you directions for costume design? So important that I made you write it down?"

Vulpoon scratched his intricately plaited beard. Realisation eventually hit and he dug deep into his pockets to draw out a small notebook. He began to read, "Did you say 'As the gritty realism of the words will play their part, you do not, I repeat: do not, need to use real spikes on any piece of costume and I don't care how effective they are in a 'tight spot'?" He raised an eyebrow.

Fenbrus turned an alarming shade of purple. "I didn't mean word for word!" he hissed.

"When you hire Deadbolt Vulpoon, you hire an artist. I don't make concessions for nobody," sighed Vulpoon.

"I don't hire you! This group works on a voluntary basis!" the director shrieked. He reverted to his coping mechanism. He allowed his head to fall forward onto his script-strewn desk, then repeated the manoeuvre.

As Fenbrus' head hitting the desk faded to a dull, percussive noise in the background, Rook sat beside Xanth on the edge of the stage.

"You weren't hurt when I kicked you, were you?" he asked, bumping his friend's shoulder in a teenage boy's approximation of concern.

"No more than I was reading that dialogue," Xanth responded with a small smile.

Sensing a lull in the shouting, a blonde head emerged from the shadows at the side of the stage. "Mr. Lodd?"

"Yes, Magda, what is it?" Fenbrus called out, voice muffled due to the fact that his nose was trying to bury his face in the table.

Magda stepped forward, threading her fingers through one another. "Well, it's just…I don't mean to be rude but…" She took a deep breath and said a small prayer to the spotlight-studded roof. "Could it possibly be that a village amateaur dramatics group doing a modern adaptation of Doctor Faustus via the ganglands of New York in a," she paused to consult her notepad, "bloody and disturbing spectacle' is a little too…ambitious?"

A deathly silence hung over the village hall.

Xanth reached up to give his doomed friend a comforting pat on the hip.

At long last, Fenbrus looked up. He stared at the stage, his one good eye somehow containing less life than the blind.

Flinching, expecting a characteristic bellow, Magda felt a far worse pang of guilt when he responded in a whisper. "But I thought you said you liked the challenge?"

She gave an awkward laugh. "Yes, I suppose I did." She amended herself quickly, "Don't get me wrong! It's been great, very…challenging, only…It's very unlikely that we can create a highly realistic representation of the flames of Hell in Lake Landing Village Hall and as for the fully operational Harley Davidsons…"

Her voice tailed off as the director continued to simply stare blankly.

A dry cough came from further back in the shadows of the hall.

"Yes, Mr. Lummus? What ray of sunshine would you like to bring into my rain-plagued life?" asked Fenbrus in a tortured whisper.

The unfortunate Stobb chose to respond with a forced hearty chuckle. "Good one director. 'Rain-plagued'…very nice, good adjective. That's why you're the one who writes the plays."

"Just get on with it, you cretin."

"Yes Mr. Lodd." He gave an embarrassed shake of the head. "Sorry about that. It's only I've been looking at our demographics for the performances before you started as director. Felix has been typing them up on your orders."

"Hmmph. We can only hope that, for once, he decided to believe in accuracy. Where is he, anyway?"

Thankfully, Stobb thought better than to laugh again. Instead, he continued, "The figures aren't half bad actually. We scored most highly in the group labelled as 'layabouts with no jobs, too much spare time and far too little taste', which on closer research appears to be the over 65s."

Fenbrus gazed around at his troupe in confusion. "And?"

A sheen of nervous sweat was detectable on Stobb's forehead even from the stage. Rook took pity on him. "Well, what I think Stobb's trying to say is…maybe that isn't quite the audience for a modern tale of," he consulted his script, "troubled youths selling their souls to stick it to the Man."

He privately reflected that the phrase 'sticking it to the man' had no place in a modern adaptation anyway.

Fenbrus looked to his players once more. Xanth nodded reticently. Magda nodded nervously. Stobb nodded convulsively. Vulpoon rolled his eyes.

The erstwhile director deflated.

"Very well. We shall…reconsider. But we can't just cancel our play! What will the Undertown Night Players think?" he demanded, a hint of nerves entering his voice.

Ah. The Undertown Night Players. The better-financed, better-facilitated rivals of Lake Landing Players and the only serious competition for the Sanctaphrax Award for Regional Theatre. The hatred between the two ran deep and bloody.

"We can still do a play! We've got two and a half months yet," Rook said, filled with new-found enthusiasm. He hopped down from the stage. "Mr. Lodd, everyone knows you can write like a demon when you need to."

Fenbrus looked up, slightly mollified.

"Xanth and I, and the others, and Felix too when he shows up, we can learn our lines as needed, so long as it's not too epic" he continued.

Looking around wildly, he added, "Magda can magic up some new scenery, she's great at that. And anyway, if we go for something classic, the sets not that vital anyway."

As Rook continued to outline his vision, Magda muttered, "Oh yeah, that's perfect Rook, never you mind that my 'Empire State Building with Demonic Influences' was almost finished, bloody actors…"

"But the main thing is, it'll be a classic. No gimmicks, no tricks, just good old-fashionedtheatre," Rook finished triumphantly.

Fenbrus got to his feet and spontaneously applauded. After a moment's hesitation, Stobb joined in. The director reached forward and shook Rook's hand.

"The show must go on, dear boy. The show must go on."


End file.
